Search Help

How does this work?
There are many ways to search the collections of the Freedom Archives. Below is a brief guide that will help you conduct effective searches. Note, anytime you search for anything in the Freedom Archives, the first results that appear will be our digitized items. Information for items that have yet to be scanned or yet to be digitized can still be viewed, but only by clicking on the show link that will display the hidden (non-digitized) items. If you are interested in accessing these non-digitized materials, please email info@freedomarchives.org.
Exploring the Collections without the Search Bar
Under the heading Browse By Collection, you’ll notice most of the Freedom Archives’ major collections. These collections have an image as well as a short description of what you’ll find in that collection. Click on that image to instantly explore that specific collection.
Basic Searching
You can always type what you’re looking for into the search bar. Certain searches may generate hundreds of results, so sometimes it will help to use quotation marks to help narrow down your results. For instance, searching for the phrase Black Liberation will generate all of our holdings that contain the words Black and Liberation, while searching for “Black Liberation” (in quotation marks) will only generate our records that have those two words next to each other.
Advanced Searching
The Freedom Archives search site also understands Boolean search logic. Click on this link for a brief tutorial on how to use Boolean search logic. Our search function also understands “fuzzy searches.” Fuzzy searches utilize the (*) and will find matches even when users misspell words or enter in only partial words for the search. For example, searching for liber* will produce results for liberation/liberate/liberates/etc.
Keyword Searches
You’ll notice that under the heading KEYWORDS, there are a number of words, phrases or names that describe content. Sometimes these are also called “tags.” Clicking on these words is essentially the same as conducting a basic search.

Search Results

Interview with Warren Wells by Mark Schwartz Interview with Warren Wells by Mark Schwartz
Date: 1/1/1973Call Number: CD 139Format: CDProducers: Mark SchwartzCollection: Compact discs and videos representing digitized copies of analog tapes
Excellent interview with Warren Wells in 1973 in Folsom Prison done by Mark Schwartz. He talks about his own politicization, life inside, political prisoners, the Black Panther Party inside, need to build support for prisoners like Geronimo Pratt and Ruchell Magee, the San Quentin Six and others. Great quality and very important in addressing the prison movement of the 1970s. Warren Wells died in prison in June, 2001. From 1/4 inch dub. Reel to reel ends abruptly in mid sentence. Some warble in track 2. Very end of last sentence repeated for track 3.
Nothing Is More Precious Than Nothing Is More Precious Than
Date: 12/29/1973Call Number: NI 013Format: 1/4 7 1/2 ipsProducers: Claude Marks, Nancy Barrett, and Mark SchwartzProgram: Nothing Is More Precious ThanCollection: “Nothing is More Precious Than…” a news magazine including music and poetry
Political prisoner and prison movement stories, including Black Liberation Army-related trials, lockdown at several California prisons, hunger strike at San Quentin Adjustment Center.